Subject: GAYS MAY BE PRONE TO PEDOPHILIA, POST SAYS
From: CENDO RICHARD <[email-masked]>
To: Multiple recipients of list GLB-NEWS <[email-masked]>

[Editor's note: although posting this on glb-news is contrary to my
agreement not to post GLAIL press releases here, I figured that this fully
labeled press release has a lot more to do with the Denver Post, rather
than with GLAIL, and would therefore not upset those who disagree with
some of GLAIL's positions -- Rick]

***PRESS RELEASE***
                             contact:  Rick Cendo
                                       GLAIL
                                       303-440-5055

    DENVER POST SAYS GAYS MAY BE PRONE TO PEDOPHILIA,
              MAY NOT BE SUBJECT TO VIOLENCE

      --GLAIL urges EVERYONE to call 303-820-1331
              and complain about AL KNIGHT--

    DENVER, CO, October 16, 1994 -- Gays and Lesbians
Against Immoral Lifestyles urges all gay and lesbian
people around the country to call the Denver Post at
303-820-1331 and politely but strongly complain to
Editorial Page Editor Chuck Green about an anti-gay
article written in Sunday's paper by Denver Post
Perspective Editor Al Knight.
    GLAIL further urges gay and lesbian Coloradans to
complain about the article and about Knight to at least
one Denver Post advertiser.
    Knight is not an opinion columnist -- he is an editor
of the Denver Post and his job is to provide in-depth
"perspective" for readers.  Knight is a long-time
supporter of Amendment 2 and has routinely attacked the
Colorado Supreme Court and Denver Judge Jefferey Bayless
for opposing Amendment 2.
    In his Sunday article, however, Knight goes further:
    Singling out for ridicule Federal Judge Arthur Spiegel
and his decision invalidating Cincinatti's Issue 3, Knight
lists some of Judge Spiegel's findings of fact and claims
that they are not facts at all.
    Among Spiegel's findings that Knight lists and then
disputes are the following:
    -- There is no correlation between homosexuality and
pedophilia.
    -- Gays, lesbians and bisexuals are often the target
of violence by heterosexuals due to their sexual
orientation.
    "Even a casual examination of these 'facts,'" Knight
writes, "shows that they are not so much facts as
assertions. You can get a good fistfight going among
academics over each and every one of them."
    Last April, Knight ridiculed and attacked a study by
the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and by Colorado's
gay and lesbian community center that showed an increase
in anti-gay violence.  When the director of the local
Anti-Violence Project, Greg Rowley, wrote a "letter the
editor" to the Post challenging Knight's distortions,
Knight personally altered Rowley's letter -- by both
deleting and ADDING words to the letter.  Rowley said
Knight's changes altered the meaning of his letter.
    Rowley was quoted in the gay press at the time as
saying, "Amazingly, Knight personally twisted our words so
that -- instead of opposing his anti-gay statement -- we
were actually supporting it. They call this journalism?"
    Post Editorial Page Editor Chuck Green admitted that
Knight added words to Rowley's letter that Rowley had
never written (see "Writer Accuses Post of Distorting
Letter, "Preferred Stock," April 20-May3, 1994).  No
correction or apology by the Post, however, was ever
issued.
    Within the last two years, Knight has also asserted
that, unlike blacks, gays have never been the subjects of
"state-sponsored discrimination."  (Knight was given
documentation showing that the Federal government until
1974 banned all homosexuals from all government jobs, but
Knight never corrected his error)
    Knight also sought to associate gays with pedophiles
in a recent article attacking the D.C. Court of Appeals
for its ruling against the anti-gay military ban.  In the
article, Knight said that if the military cannot ban gays
from service by presuming that their orientation will lead
to illegal homosexual conduct in the military, then child
care centers will not be able to ban admitted pedophiles
from employment by presuming that their orientation will
lead to molesting children.
    In a phone conversation with GLAIL President Rick
Cendo, shortly after the publication of Knight's pro-ban
article, Knight admitted that he had unfairly associated
gays and pedophiles.  However, Knight neither issued a
correction nor an apology, nor did he allow publication of
a "letter to the editor" by Cendo disputing Knight's
association of gays and pedophiles. (In addition to
serving as Perspective Editor, Knight controls to the
letters to the editor section of the Post.)
    Finally, in August, Knight published a "letter to the
editor" which flatly stated, as a matter of fact, that the
gay-sponsored protest to Coach McCartney's Promise Keepers
meeting was organized by "pedophiles, homosexuals and
(heaven help us) a politician."  While Knight was on
vacation, Post Editorial Editor Chuck Green allowed
publication of a letter by GLAIL President Rick Cendo, who
was also a protest organizer, asserting that no pedophiles
were involved in organizing the protest.
    "This is not a case of some guy who is unfamiliar with
the facts," said GLAIL president Rick Cendo.  "Al Knight
has been given the studies; he's been spoken to by many
gay and lesbians readers over several years, including me;
it's just that he doesn't care about the truth. It's that
simple," Cendo said.
    "Al Knight is paid to be an objective Perspective
Editor, but Al Knight has an agenda.  Al Knight's agenda
is to codify second-class citizenship for gay men and
lesbians, and he hopes to accomplish this with an
all-too-familiar game plan: 1.) continually and
relentlessly associate gays with pedophiles and imply that
gays are prone to pedophilia.  2.) continually and
relentlessly deny that gays are subject to discrimination
or violence on account of our sexual orientation."
    "Al Knight has demonstrated over and over again that
he is not a journalist; he is a skillful, calculating
liar, and he knows he's a liar," Cendo said.
    "If Al Knight wants to be a propaganda writer for
Colorado For Family Values, then his articles should be
properly labeled as propaganda rather than news analysis,
and CFV, not the Post, should be paying his salary," Cendo
said.
    "Until that happens, either Al Knight should start
acting like a journalist and have some respect for the
truth, or the Denver Post and Chuck Green should start
acting like a newspaper and editorial page editor,
respectively, and get rid of Al Knight," Cendo said.